Escape
Most monsters in Brogue move the same speed as you -- what's worse, you can run forever and they won't give up the chase. How do you get away? Avoid Trouble An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The farther you stay from dangerous enemies, the better off you'll be. *'Inspect a monster' the moment it enters your view, even if you've seen it before. You might be tempted to underestimate it because you were better equipped or at a higher character level when you fought it in a previous run. *Particularly nasty monsters are often spawned asleep. When you see them, find ways to explore the level that don't involve getting close. *If you have a Ring of Stealth, wear it. Understand the mechanics of Stealth. *There are more options for escape while a monster is still far away, so don't let it get close in the first place until you're fairly certain you're going to win. You'll regret every turn you waste. *A Potion of Telepathy'or a 'Ring of Clairvoyance will give you the chance to see a monster when it has no chance of seeing you. If you're alone on a dangerous level, these are lifesavers. Down deep, you can't see far without a Ring of Light. There's nothing quite like waking a sleeping dragon because you didn't notice it in time. Understand the Monster *Some monsters, including vampire bats, will-o-the-wisps, and eels, move erratically. They waste one third of their moves moving randomly. *Flying monsters will follow you wherever you go, even down into chasms. *Fast monsters (jackals, vampire bats, wraiths, furies, and dragons) will close distance against you quickly and proceed to damage you if you run away. You must tailor your escape to your pursuer. *Nagas and salamanders will happily chase you through water. *Dar blademasters can blink after you, but they still only take turns as fast as you do. So long as you don't get cornered by them, most tricks for escape will work. *Centaurs will harry you with their arrows and goblin conjurers will send blades after you if you simply walk away from them, so be prepared to take some damage while making your escape. *Casters (ogre shamans, pixies, dar battlemages, liches, and dragons) can attack you as long as they have a line of fire. Even a simple measure like ducking behind foliage or a door will help. Exploit the Dungeon *Most monsters refuse to chase you through deep water. You'll have to grab your equipment as it floats away and mind eels, but you'll save your life. Sometimes it's worth eliminating water-bound creatures to make an escape route for yourself later. *Most monsters refuse to follow you when you jump into chasms. If you remember a chasm on an earlier level, you can lead a monster up to it and then jump down. *If the monster isn't hard on your tail, you can lead it to a trap and either get it to step on the trap itself or throw a dart or wand or food ration on the trap to set it off. (Just don't get paralyzed as well! Monsters recover from paralysis quicker than you do!) *Sometimes a monster that you can't kill on your own is an easy target standing in caustic gas or after being lit on fire. Even with a monster hard on your tail, you can throw something on a caustic gas trap after you both pass it by a few cells, and wait for the cloud to expand to cover the monster -- and back away as it reaches you. *Step on a confusion trap near a chasm or, better yet, near lava. It will send your enemy plummeting while you stand perfectly still. Be wary of lava, however, as the monster can set the whole cloud ablaze when it burns up. Use Consumables *A Potion of Descent is a great way to make a problem go away before a monster actually reaches you, but once it's next to you, you'll both fall. Potions of descent make temporary chasms, so the same rules apply, and flying monsters (like vampire bats) will follow you. Consider throwing it instead of drinking it. *A Wand of Teleportation will send the monster somewhere else on the level. It might not be very far, but it will at least send it somewhere you can't see it. *A Scroll of Teleportation will take you somewhere else on the level -- somewhere you can't presently see. It might take you out of the frying pan and into the fire, so be careful. *A Potion of Levitation will let you hover over chasms or magma to get away. You can combine it with a Potion of Descent to get rid of an adjacent enemy without plunging down yourself. *A Potion of Fire Immunity will let you cross magma or escape through open flames, where enemies will be reluctant to follow. *A Potion of Speed can help you put distance between you and the monster — but you should also consider whether it would give you the edge in a fight. (If you can kill the monster in a few hits but it would kill you even faster, you can attack, step back, attack, step back, attack, step back, until it's dead.) *A thrown Potion of Darkness makes super darkness that increases your stealth checks. This might help you sneak up to or past a monster, or if you're across the level from it, make it lose track of you. *If a flying monster won't leave you alone, you can read a Scroll of Negation or zap it with a Wand of Negation to take away its flight, and then escape across deep water or dive into a chasm or apply any of the other tricks that work on non-flying monsters. Improve Your Permanent Equipment *With a Staff of Blinking, blink across chasms or lava that the monster can't cross. At higher levels, you can blink repeatedly or cross broader gulfs. *With a Staff of Obstruction, obstruct the monster before it reaches you. (If you have a Staff of Tunneling, you can obstruct it even after it gets to you and then tunnel out.) *The blades from a Staff of Conjuration will distract a monster, buying you time to escape. *Weapons with runics of Confusion, Slowness, or Paralysis can leave monsters unable to chase you down effectively. *Once you're out of sight, a Ring of Stealth will help shift the monster back into a wandering state. *A Staff of Entrancement will make the monster walk away from you while you walk away from it, buying you time. When it snaps out of its entrancement, it has to try to notice you again — so if you're in a shadow or around a corner, it might go back to wandering. *A Staff of Discord can occupy a group of enemies as they fight amongst themselves. (As of 1.6.2, this doesn't work on centaurs. This is a bug.) Category:strategy